Words according to Thomas, Co-Founder, Jack of all Trades, and Creative and Visual Director of Raven Vanguard

Today’s succinct Once-over is about the Spirit of Christmas, inclusiveness, and the power of openmindedness and interconnectedness.

Words according to Thomas, Co-Founder, Jack of all Trades, and Creative and Visual Director of Raven Vanguard

 As this decade draws to a close, as a business owner, I have come face-to-face with the utter mind-boggling unpredictability of commerce and aesthetic taste.

No ifs. No ands. No buts. No doubts. No second-guessing. Raven Vanguard is an extraordinary labor of love. Brooke’s labor of love. Dakota’s labor of love. And, most assuredly, mine.

Words according to Dakota, SHE II, and Raven Vanguard’s third member, also known as Sloth

Where oh where do I begin this week, the first week of December and the last first week of 2019. The last first week of this decade. I feel like every year it always dawns on us that we should make resolutions for the New Year, plans that will move us onward and upward as individuals. But this year feels far more monumental.

Introductory words according to Dakota, SHE II, and Raven Vanguard’s third member, also known as Sloth

Today, for our Weekly Once-Over, we bring to you for the second time, the wondrous Bhakti Sharma. Today, we pass the mic to someone of thoughtfulness, integrity, and imagination.

For me, her topic at hand is all too fitting for the week of Thanksgiving. A week of gathering and family, of food and conversation. Conversation that specifically, almost always, veers into categories of disapproval, questioning the future, confronting relationships new and old, life choices. (Not to cancel out all of the delicious food, positive conversation, and general happiness.)

Words according to Thomas, Co-Founder, Jack of all Trades, and Creative and Visual Director of Raven Vanguard

What is Raven Vanguard’s design aesthetic? (If you prefer brass tacks over any form of explanation, and you're merely looking for an abridged version, please skip to the very last paragraph) We field this question daily now that our showrooms at Raven Vanguard House are finally open to our clientele, collaborators, and the international arts community. And it was a friend and collaborator’s observation this past week indicating that (and I am paraphrasing here because the context and conversation would take hours to explain) we had conceived the essence of Satan’s playground, that spawned the very subject matter of today’s Once-over.

Words according to Thomas, Co-Founder, Jack of all Trades, and Creative and Visual Director of Raven Vanguard

Ramblings of a Madman Across the Water Consumed By Batshit Lunacy, Or Impassioned Lucidity? You Be the Judge!

Like most every small, legitimately-operating, US-based business, especially one having to navigate within the over-taxing commercial hellishness of New York State, Raven Vanguard has been afflicted with the inevitability of growing pains. There are many reasons for this, the uncertainty of the global economy and Country-wide political unrest (and moral squalor) being chief culprits. And discrimination in the ever-tightening small business and consumer credit markets and a shrinking talent pool within the employment sector being equally notable as well. These barriers, while close to the edge challenging, are not insurmountable to the ongoing success of Raven Vanguard.

Words according to Thomas, Co-Founder, Jack of all Trades, and Creative and Visual Director of Raven Vanguard

When Rules, Trends, and the Commonplace Don’t Apply

Today’s Once-over is, in part, a heartfelt open letter of sorts to Brooke and Dakota, my Raven Vanguard accomplices, reminding them that we were never meant to be for everybody, and encouraging them to keep the faith because 2020 will surely be the year of Radical and Visionary. In other words, it will be our year.

Words according to Dakota, SHE II, and Raven Vanguard’s third member, also known as Sloth

October always flies by without warning. Every single year. It is my favorite month for a whole lot of reasons. Halloween (aka the only time of year people think it’s okay to be weird & like all of the things I like, such as true crime murder podcasts and horror films), cooler weather and layering clothing, warm drinks, the changing colors of the leaves, and the celebratory indulgence of all things pumpkin, but it is always fleeting. Fall usually exits around the same time October leaves us, as the leaves fall to the ground and we prepare for the winter to come. There is beauty to the changing of the seasons, and with this one comes the joy of the holidays.

Words according to All of Us - Icebreaker Questions to Get to Know Us a Little Better

Fame and fortune, and everything that goes with it, or anonymity?

Baker, or candlestick maker?

Influencer-driven cultural trends; fan or foe?

and more

Words according to Dakota, SHE II, and Raven Vanguard’s third member, also known as Sloth

It is officially time for yet another Weekly Once-Over. And I am finding myself having somewhat of a difficult time figuring out what there is to talk about. Maybe it’s just the fact that I have been so beyond busy that I am brain dead to the creative process of writing. Or maybe I just don’t have enough going on to really talk about.

So instead of talking about me, I’ll talk about what has been up at the Raven House. The last few weeks alone we have been hosting events within the space and meeting with a wide range of Buffalo’s creative movers and shakers.

Words according to Thomas, Co-Founder, Jack of all Trades, and Creative and Visual Director of Raven Vanguard

Once-over time again? How is that even possible? Being uncharacteristically caught off guard, I am entirely unprepared to write about anything today, especially anything that will require me to tap into my creative side.

If I were looking for the easy way out, I could simply write about the most recent (and many) bludgeoning examples of the spiritual bankruptcy of mankind (gender specificity intended); however, today, I just don’t feel like acknowledging another week of boorish and inhuman behavior by a growing worldwide cesspool of miscreants and the sycophants that enable them (Rudy, is that you?).

Words according to All of Us

Icebreaker questions are usually designed to be innocuous conversation starters for people who are interested in getting to know one another better or simply to avoid those uncomfortable moments of deafening silence when coming face-to-face with strangers or new acquaintances.

Words according to Dakota, SHE II, and Raven Vanguard’s third member, also known as Sloth

What oh what to talk about?

This week, I’ll start with the fact that I am quite possibly a workaholic that is in a constant struggle with responsibility. It is not that I don’t get things done, or that I am lazy, but I really do have relatively high expectations for myself and an unrealistic sense of what I should be able to push myself to accomplish. I am always pushing myself. To the point where I really should exercise restraint. You see, I have always tirelessly tried to become a Jack-of-MANY-Trades. Not a Jack of All, but many. More than just a few.

Words according to Thomas, Co-Founder, Jack of all Trades, and Creative and Visual Director of Raven Vanguard

Today, Dakota and I partake in a cataclysmic twosome of the literary-kind.

In the lonely universe of luxury design, Raven Vanguard inherently embodies an aesthetic of mysteriousness and inscrutability that, at first observation, seems utterly inaccessible to younger generations of consumers like Millennials/Gen Yers and Generation Zers. (Technically, I am a Boomer, and Brooke and Dakota are Millennials. In the interest of openminded discourse, we defy the archetypes of our respective generations.)

Words according to Dakota, SHE II, and Raven Vanguard’s third member, also known as Sloth

There is so much that could be written about the gravity of this week and the somber tone that comes along with it, year after year since 2001. All of our lives were forever changed on September 11th, even mine as a 5-year-old kid. We all know someone who worked within blocks, lived in the area, volunteered, saved lives, lost their life, knew someone who lost a loved one. We were all affected, as we watched the horrific footage on the televisions in our offices, living rooms, classrooms, gas stations, bars. We heard it on the radio. We saw it in the reflection of our parents crying, the look of horror on our teachers faces, our friends in shock and scared. I’ll never forget that day and the impact it had on me as a child. Sure, I may have only been 5, but I saw the way it affected my mom, as she watched the TV and called my dad over and over to make sure he was okay. He was flying for business that day, a simple thing he always did, yet everything was different.

Words according to Brooke, Co-Founder and Boss Lady of Raven Vanguard

Hi September, nice to see you again- you have always been my favorite. September has always represented a fresh start for me and is a month that is now extra special as Tom and I approach our first wedding anniversary. September swoops in fast and goes out even faster, if we could only hang on to it and spread it out a little longer- I’d be down with that. 

There is something to be said about getting back into a routine with September. Back in the school mindset. I’m ready to buckle down and get to work. Although summers as an adult are about work too, hmm. I’ve been looking forward to Fall, since the end of July- really. Not much into the summer heat thing. And I have to say, I think that’s the general consensus with the rest of the Ravens that Fall is our thing. One Raven in particular keeps mentioning how they like the “spookiness” of fall, I’ll let you guess which one of us that might be. But I have to agree- the “spookiness” sucks me in as well. 

Words according to Thomas, Co-Founder, Jack of all Trades, and Creative and Visual Director of Raven Vanguard

The Enigmatic Creative Universe of Raven Vanguard

Today’s Once-over purposely and enthusiastically abandons my usual looking-glass examinations of bewildering topics like God Herself, Trump, AOC, Boris and Brexit, atheists and believers, #metoo, trade wars with China, inverted yield curves, North Korea’s nuclear submarines, hashtag absurdity, truth as an afterthought, the senselessness surrounding Kashmir, plastics in our oceans, trafficked women, the pitfalls of social media, and men behaving badly with guns and bombs. Instead, today, I choose to revel in the notion and power of mysteriousness and exclusivity. Thank you, Lenny Belardo.

Words according to Dakota, SHE II, and Raven Vanguard’s third member, also known as Sloth

I have been doing a lot of thinking lately. Mainly about how my generation tends to get a bad wrap for social media usage, addiction to phones, and for not living in the moment because pictures are taken of what we are doing and experiencing. We scroll and scroll. We feel like we are missing out because of that “highlight reel” effect, always seeing the positive points in others’ lives, causing us to think their life is more exciting or fulfilling.

Words according to Thomas, Co-Founder, Jack of all Trades, and Creative and Visual Director of Raven Vanguard

Today Happens to Be One of Those Opinionated Days

So, ready, set, duck!

We recently spent some fruitful time in Montreal, Quebec introducing the eccentricities of Raven Vanguard to the art and design communities of this oft-misunderstood Province. Montreal is always a wise choice for creatives when they are looking to hide away from the mainstream and half-assed imitators, and the flat-out absurdity of mankind in general (gender descriptor intended).

Words according to Lacy, the mohawk sporting, woman-supporting, bad-ass empowerment speaker with no affiliation whatsoever to Raven Vanguard

Empowerment Through Beauty

“Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.”  Confucius 

I’m a weird bird.  I’ve always been attracted to older men, scars, and big noses.  

As I write this, I sit at a stunning, perfectly round table with swirling veneers inlaid into a design that is romantic and fierce at the same time.  I’ve always envisioned magical séances taking place around this table.  The chairs are equally as alluring to a lingering eye.  They are mesomorphic and shapely in a way that is pleasing, but not too overpowering.  They are large, but demure…  sturdy, but delicate.